Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/126443
PHOTO COURTESY OF PLYMOUTH GIN WORLD TRAVELER The Plymouth Gin tour to celebrate the life of Harry Craddock included a memorial at Craddock's rediscovered grave in London's Gunnersbury Cemetery. Harry Craddock Has His Day by Camper English PHOTO COURTESY OF PLYMOUTH GIN Harry Craddock's White Lady cocktail, made with Plymouth Gin, at The Savoy's American Bar. 42 / the tasting panel / may 2013 T he Savoy Cocktail Book is one of the most important drink collections of all time, and its author, Harry Craddock, was once London's most celebrated bartender. Plymouth Gin, which is included in many recipes in the book by name, recently paid tribute to this legendary bartender with a bar crawl retracing his life in London. The large group of the city's top bartenders (and a few lown in from other countries) began at the end, gathering at Craddock's recently-discovered grave, where he was buried in 1963. Hosts historian Anistatia Miller and Brand Ambassador Max Warner welcomed all with a cocktail, then the group formed a convoy of 1930s-era taxis to visit the Savoy Hotel. Though he rose to early fame in America, Craddock lived most of his life in London, arriving at The Savoy after U.S. Prohibition began in 1920. Celebrated ex-Savoy bartenders Salim Khoury, By 1927, he was so famous Peter Dorelli and Victor Gower toast Harry his igure was on display in Craddock at the Plymouth Gin event to celebrate Madame Tussauds wax museum the life of the renowned bartender. and he was constantly in the newspapers. In 1930, he published about 1000 recipes in The Savoy Cocktail Book, which has not been out of print since. Next up was the gorgeously-restored Café Royal, where Craddock never worked but did co-found the irst U.K. Bartenders' Guild with its head bartender, leading to the publication of The Café Royal Cocktail Book. Then it was on to The Dorchester Hotel, where Craddock worked for eight years and may have served the likes of Winston Churchill during the Second World War. At each stop along this trail, four of The Savoy's current and former lead bartenders—Erik Lorincz, Peter Dorelli, Salim Khoury, and Victor Gower—mixed up a Craddock-championed cocktail made with Plymouth. After the group returned to The Savoy, vials of each drink were placed inside a cocktail shaker and buried inside a wall of the hotel, as Craddock had done during a renovation in 1927. Then the serious toasting began. Fifty years after his passing, Harry Craddock was offered the tribute—and the party—he so richly deserved. PHOTO COURTESY OF PLYMOUTH GIN PHOTO COURTESY OF PLYMOUTH GIN Erik Lorincz, head bartender at The American Bar at The Savoy, pours a Dry Martini made using Harry Craddock's recipe from The Savoy Cocktail Book as part of Plymouth gin's tour to celebrate the life of the bartender. PLYMOUTH GIN CELEBRATES THE AUTHOR OF THE SAVOY COCKTAIL BOOK